The Show is UP: Roger Thomas

Sorry to have been quiet for the past several days, but I've been really busy catching up and getting new work going. Here's this week's episode of the show. It's a long one, but many listeners have already remarked that the scrum between me and Miles after the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week was laugh-out-loud funny. Anywho, click on the date below to make it play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. You can subscribe, too, (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune.

March 7: Wynn's Design Alter Ego

After designing several of the most beautiful hotels in Las Vegas if not the world, what does Roger Thomas do for, no pun intended, an encore? Well, for one thing, this weekend the world’s most famous movie stars will lounge in a green room of his design before appearing on stage at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood for the 82nd annual Academy Awards show. Does this star turn mean that Steve Wynn’s gay alter ego is launching a new phase of his career? Maybe, but he’s still got his hands full with projects for Wynn Resorts as varied as an luxury resort in Macau, a new beach club at Encore Las Vegas and a non-hotel casino in Philadelphia. Thomas discusses the Oscars, the Wynns, CityCenter and a whole lot more.

Plus, Liberace's home is in foreclosure, Miles recounts his Carson City trek, Steve chats about the Grand Canyon Skywalk, some good and bad news on CityCenter.

Links for stuff discussed:

Roger Thomas’ website
An image of Roger Thomas’ green room design
Miles' home in Carson City, the Hardman House
The Grand Canyon Skywalk
AOLNews on the Liberace home foreclosure
Liberace Museum is trying to move
Liberace movie news re: Michael Douglas and Matt Damon
The latest TicketNews.Com list
Maloof did react to the Palms-Harrah's debt question
Listen to analysis re: MGM v Atlantic City on the No. 44 of Vegas Gang
Roger Thomas's favorites, Pacific Design Center and 1stdibs.com
VegasHappensHere.Com on that poll regarding lesbian love for Vegas
The New Yorker piece on Peter Chang
Links for J&J Szechuan Cuisine and China MaMa

A Zipline for...Excalibur?

I didn't want this to get buried in the other post about the Bootleg Canyon Flightlines, but during my interview with Ryan Geene, the manager of the attraction, he revealed that Greenheart LLC, which owns it is in negotiations with Excalibur to build one there, too.

They two sides are in early negotiations, but one issue, Geene acknowledged, is that they still want tourists to want to come to Boulder City to ride that system. Here's what he told me:

"We’re trying to see if we do one line, a teaser line, so you fly out and when you get off there’s a kiosk where you can sign up to go do the real deal out in Bootleg Canyon. ... But it would have to be exciting, too. If it's just a slow line, it’s no fun, why would you want to do a boring thing? So it would have to be exciting and leave you wanting more."

Geene said they're scoping out places to erect the steel cables, maybe "somewhere above the drawbridge where you walk in so you’re flying over everybody as they’re walking in."

He also said they're talking to the Hualapai Indian tribe in northwest Arizona. They're the ones who built the Grand Canyon Skywalk and they're always looking for new things to build to give tourists more to do. Also, because the Hualapai aren't beholden to the environmental regulations on their portion of the Grand Canyon that the US Parks Service are, there's more opportunity to create a zipline across some portion of the big hole. That said, it doesn't strike me that ziplines are all that harsh on the environment but I doubt the U.S. government would permit it given that they reject most everything else including the Skywalk.

Anyhow, more of these things are coming.